"o, holy night" and canker sores
(maybe this is what hell is like)


"you are listening to 96.5. birmingham's only station that brings you christmas in july."

wait.

this is a selling point? let's put aside that i am usually in a bad mood anyway when i close the store on a saturday night, mainly because both my eyes are already pointed toward my sunday off. let's forget for a second that it was two billion degrees in said store because two of my a/c units were down. and let's pretend that one of the first things that caught my attention as i turned the corner to aisle 6 (the bird aisle, ironically enough) wasn't a big, steaming pile of pit bull crap. but let's focus on what truly ended up killing me over the course of saturday evening. magic 96 was blasting from it's airwaves christmas music. in july. and i couldn't think of one good reason for them to do it. now granted, this is not a new concept. magic 96 does this every year. and every year, it sneaks up on me like a thief in the night carrying a hot steak knife with my eardrums playing the role of butter. so, i decided that i would chart the madness. it would be my own little psp drinking game. my drink of choice? mello-yello. every time bloody josh groban or any other poor bastard poured their heart out singing their "creative" and "unique" version of "o, holy night", i would drink. 3:45. our night in shining armor shows himself to the masses. josh the magnificent unleashes what i've been told was track number one on jesus' christmas 2007 mixtape. 6:33. someone less handsome raises their voice to the alpha and omega's glory with their own version. 7:25 (less than an hour later!!!). someone else. bottle is empty. i am drunk with envy that i, too, have not been asked to contribute my own mello-yello-ed colored version of this mighty beast of a song. i can't take it. i change the channel. god cries.

on top of this, the soundtrack of my night spun by dj memphistopheles, i have found in my mouth a wound that feels like it must be the size of a grapefruit. the true image in my mirror begs differently. it lies and shows a spot no larger than one on hannah's fingernails, but each time i turn away from the prevaricator on the wall, the entire left side of my face begins to pulse. the grapefruit inside my mouth dares me to eat, drink or even try to be merry. he will not let this be. i took joseph's advice. i tried to drown the evil in steak last night. and though the steak was, indeed, a formidable opponent and won a strategically planned battle, it seems the canker sore is winning the war.

the easy next joke would be an attempt to riff on how truly disgusting just the words "canker sore" are. and let's be honest. it sounds pretty effing bad. i do not want to trivialize this enemy's worth, though. nor do i want to anger it further. i have never known truer evidence that we live in a fallen world than i did saturday night when the forces of "christmas in july" and the canker sore converged against me. this afternoon, i pray for mercy. a savior even. someone that may take my burden from me. for i am not strong enough to carry this weight on my own.

where are you...

batman?

no, really. everyone (minus you, joseph and christina and marie and the rest of the "lost") did see batman this weekend, right? that movie kicked my canker sore's ass!!!